Green Chicken Hawks? [Reader Post]

Yes, it’s time to go back to one of my old favorite topics that I haven’t dedicated any posts to in a while – Global Warming! I haven’t written about it lately because there really hasn’t been too much I can add that I haven’t already mentioned, such as why the issue of GW is based far more on faith than science. There have been recent developments too, such as the CNN talking hairdo who thinks that asteroids are caused by GW or Al Gore’s recent Current TV windfall, but criticizing the hypocrisy of a pudgy, jet-setting, mansion living millionaire making a fortune by selling out to oil wealth and then lecturing the masses on over consumption is like shooting fish in a barrel. One recent article over at the leftist publication The Nation caught my eye, though.

To back up a bit, the story at The Nation is about student groups pressuring universities to divest of any holdings that they have in companies that produce fossil fuels, since producing the fuel that keeps these students warm and ensuring that their iPods and fair trade coffee get shipped to them is somehow immoral. Stories about pressure to divest over various causes are nothing new, whether it be over companies in South Africa back during Apartheid, Israel today, or companies tied to the military. Although this story itself isn’t any new angle, it gave me an idea. How about offering the left a far more constructive way to use its resources, namely in investment?

Back to the title of the post, I am referring to a term used back during the 2004 presidential election. That was the election where John Kerry ran on the Democrat Party’s ticket with a pretty straightforward platform that consisted of a few key points:

He served in Vietnam

Having served in Vietnam alone made him far more qualified than Bush to be president

Because he served in Vietnam, you may not criticize him

Vietnam Vietnam, and in conclusion,

Vietnam

Amazingly, Kerry came very close to becoming president without ever taking a stand on a single issue, a feat we would not see accomplished until 2008. One term that the left liked to use in criticism of anyone who disagreed with Kerry, and more specifically, also supported the war in Iraq was “Chicken Hawk.” The term was a play on the “Hawks vs. Doves” argument in terms of one’s view of warfare, and was referring to the pro-war Hawks being too chicken to enlist. When you get down to it, it probably wasn’t the best term for what was trying to be conveyed, since chicken hawks are birds of prey, not to mention the name of one of the coolest Warner Brothers characters drawn in the Bugs Bunny cartoons. The intended meaning was directed toward anyone of fighting age or with children of fighting age who were not serving in Iraq. The basic message was they the leftists were justified in opposing the war because they were trying to bring the troops back home beside them. If you supported the war and weren’t volunteering to enlist and personally throw yourself on an IED or have your sons do so you had no moral standing to support the war. Granted, that’s sort of the equivalent of arguing that being pro-abortion and being unwilling to have your brain sucked out with a vacuum, get disemboweled with a pair of forceps and to have your body discarded as medical waste invalidates your opinion, but that’s neither here nor there.

I’m going green by driving a coal powered electric car!

Back to the topic at hand, I started thinking that while pressure to get universities or institutions to divest from fossil fuel companies is one means to try to affect change, wouldn’t it be more productive to actually invest or work in the companies that would create this energy? It’s one thing to take away other people’s choices, but it is far better to make your choice more appealing. I looked at how much has been spent in green lobbying efforts over the last decade, and according to Opensecrets.org, roughly $70 Million has been directly spent on these specific efforts. And that number would be higher if one could calculate the value of all of the green propaganda that gets foisted onto us in TV and in movies, “news” stories that glorify the movement, etc. Instead of trying to force people away from a choice they clearly prefer to make since they are willing to spend their hard earned money on in fossil fuel based energy, why not offer them alternatives? If you want people to use renewable energy stop paying members of Congress to force other people to pay for it. Go out and use your own money for these projects! And even better, these companies could hire predominately young, unemployed people, pay them high union wages with generous pay and benefits, and watch the company take off! For all of the Hollywood celebrities who preach at us, let them move into small, energy efficient homes whose electricity is only powered by solar and wind! Of all people they have the money to build these expensive energy sources, and they can show us the way for how the masses can follow their examples. Or even easier for the leftists who can’t afford their own personal wind farms or lobbyists, they can look at their own investments and avoid any stocks or mutual funds that profit from fossil fuels and invest their own money in green technology instead of forcing the rest of us to do so. “What, you say? You’re supporting forcing other people to waste their money on unprofitable companies creating unreliable and expensive energy but you won’t put your own money into these ventures? Well, you sir are a green chicken hawk!”

Of course, even one of the early icons of the green movement has seen the error of his ways, but don’t expect to hear much of it in the news. And don’t expect the left in this country to shift its investment strategies, but if nothing else we can have some fun with them!

About Brother Bob

Blogging by the credo of "Making the world a more offensive place, one blog post at a time", Brother Bob started writing posts around the beginning of the Obama presidency over at Brother Bob's Blog. A born-again Existentialist and self-professed libertarian with conservative tendencies, he has ironically chosen to live in the Washington, DC area - deep behind enemy lines. He has always loved history, and spent eight years volunteering as a tour guide on weekends, giving over 200 tours to roughly 2,500 mostly foreign guests. His tours were highlighted by stories generally not found in the history books or most other tours, such as the importance of the Battle if Antietam, the origins or Arlington Cemetery, and dispelling the myths of FDR's New Deal.
Although his favorite subject to blog about is Economics, as seen in his Economics for Politicians series, his posts try to address angles that other conservative writers and the mainstream media (naturally!) miss. "There's no point in putting up a post on a subject that someone smarter than me has already written". He believes in the "Happy Warrior" approach, and tries to inject humor in his posts, sometimes successfully. Two such examples are his posts comparing the modern left to the horrible Star Wars prequels, and analyzing the laments of a DC woman in search of a feminist boyfriend.
Brother Bob lives with his very patient wife known as Sister Babe, and their fantastic son. Little Bob. Little Bob is also the reason that being a tour guide came to an end, as spending Saturdays raising a son takes priority over giving lectures to foreign visitors on the folly of Keynesian economics.
BB is also grateful for the opportunity to take his place among the outstanding writers at Flopping Aces, appreciates every person who takes the time to read his posts, and especially those who join him in the conversation in the comments.

ilovebeeswarzone

BROTHER BOB
THANK YOU FOR A VERY INTERESTING POST
I would like to mention an bit of news paper clip i
I read yesterday, you gave me the post to have it fit, I’m sure,
it is about the turbines towers and the new find is a search which is
claiming that those turbines bring depression to a community around it,
and for some reason they want to look at the hairs of those community
, because they can find residues in the hairs coming from the turbines
which are the proof and the ones who contribute to the depression,
I MUST SAY it is beyond
my comprehension, but it come from a very serious source
in scientific research,
bye

Ditto

With the left, it’s hard to to say with any degree of certainty, whether there was or wasn’t an intentional secondary slang-based insult being included with this particular word choice. However, given their past preference of continually, gleefully using offensive terms in regards to Republicans, conservatives and others they despise, (esp. after their opponents become aware of the slang usage,) we can’t rule it out.